"His own spy, I wager, and that is what killed him. But what did he know of Giles that Giles would not have me hear?"
"Warren Hemlet—"
"I am sorry, Edith, but Giles would not be concerned by that and he would not think me troubled by it, either."
Edith shivered, but knew he was right.
"He said something strange, about your being much wronged by Giles, and that you should look at your homeland; something in your homeland." Edith fought to recall the rest: her memory, usually so reliable, was failing her tonight.
"My homeland? I do not understand that."
She seized on what she knew for certain.
"He is branding people." She could not say the word runaways: it was too near her own truth.
Ranulf shook his head. "Giles would argue such was his right," he answered, with the casual ease of a lord free of the dread of such punishments. "It must have been something else, something touching Giles directly, perhaps this homeland thing."
Edith trembled at his accurate assessment, blinking as they entered into Ranulf's tent, to be met by a living wall of men and torches. Ranulf swept through them and his soldiers, grizzled veterans every one, by their looks, saluted and marched outside.
"They will keep watch outside this night, though you will be glad to know the church mob seem to have melted into the earth—they are gone at least." Ranulf lowered the stool beside his own couch, plucked her off it and sat on it himself, with her on his lap.
"Giles has asked me to go hunting with him tomorrow."
"You must not go!"
He raised his sandy eyebrows. "Is that a lady's request?"
She paused, sensing a trap.
"Should I obey you? As you did my request?"
Guilt overwhelmed her as she thought of the nameless spy, killed because he had spoken to her. Whatever Ranulf said, that death would always be on her mind. In a moment of weakness, she considered a priest: finding a priest to whom she could make confession.
You think all that false, reminded Gregory in her mind. You have fallen out with God.
God has fallen out with the world, she thought, considering the ever-present threat of pestilence.
“How is Nigel?" she asked.
There was a pause as Ranulf plainly had to recollect who she meant. "My wheelwright is doing well now." Ranulf's mouth twitched. "I saw him rushing after another of those wretched pie-men, keen to risk another bad stomach."
"Is Lady Blanche truly free of the dark death?” she asked, distracted afresh by that fear. “Do you know that for sure? If—aahh!”
Falling, she scrabbled wildly, trying to grab Ranulf's hands or tunic. She found herself cradled, still on his lap, but with her legs pinned by one of his arms and raised above her head. Her shoulders were pressed against his knees, her head cushioned by his bed. Guessing he had planned this and furious at her own helplessness, she writhed and kicked.
"Let me up!"
Leg-wrestling against Ranulf's encircling arm was futile.
He tickled her bare navel with the hand attached to the arm gripping her legs. "More orders, princess?"
Without meaning to, she lifted herself to his teasing caress, mortified anew as he chuckled. "What if Edmund or Gawain come in now?" she hissed.
"They will see me with my bride-to-be, laying down the terms of our marriage: bed and board."
"What manner of terms? Why should you think I wish to be humiliated?"
He shook his large, fair head. "All of my folk, including Edmund and Gawain, are under strict orders to remain outside this night."
"All night?" She wondered why.
"A summer night under this moon will be a fine adventure for Gawain. As for the rest, I admit to teasing you a little, but truly, maid of mine, I wish only for your full attention."
"But what we have spoken of already, my village? You do not wish to know more?"
"No more of Giles and his filthy doings tonight, no."
With his free hand—humiliatingly, he still had a free hand, although she could only wriggle—he held up something that glittered in the torch-light. "My family ring, and badge. Too large for your fingers, but it is my pledge to you."
He flipped it in the air like a coin, caught the ring and dropped it onto her navel. She stiffened at the chill gold against her skin and he laughed aloud, the brute.
"I cannot wear it," she ground out. ''Tis too cumbersome."
"You will wear it, my prize. I wager, you will carry it proudly and show it off as soon as maybe to the other damsels."
His blithe certainty made her long to find a smithy and melt the thing down. "I will n—"
He leaned down and ravished her mouth with a kiss that tingled her lips, breasts and loins. The gold ring slid off her belly as he kissed the tops of her breasts not covered by her bodice.
"My ring!" she moaned, trying to reach down with her hand.
"Yours already, eh? I knew it would not take long." He leaned and rummaged in the beaten earth and floor strewings, recovering the ring and tucking it in her short bodice between her breasts. "There. I hope it is not discomforting? I know other ladies place all manner of objects in their gowns."
Jealousy smoked in her at the idea of those other women but she was determined to be cool as summer ale on a hot day. "Please, Ranulf, I grow dizzy like this. You would not have me turn nauseous, would you?"
"You have too high a colour for that to be the truth, my prize." He softly patted her rump. "A vulnerable position for you to be telling lies."
Before she could answer, he drew back her long skirt, giving it a little flip and shake. To her horror, it fell away completely from her legs and nether regions.
"No!" Exposed, she clamped her thighs together, mortified that he could see her most intimate places.
At once he stopped, raising a fold of silk and draping it across her. He kissed her, teasing her mouth with his tongue. "Are you sure you wish me to stop?" he whispered.
She felt his arousal, snug and tight against her.
"I will never shame you." Full and bright with feeling, his eyes held hers as he made the vow. "I will never deny you. I will cherish you all the days of our lives."
Would this be something she would whisper to a daughter in later years? Edith wondered. Your father once made a solemn vow of love to me when I was helpless on his lap in a most strange way?
An arousing way, she admitted, as she sensed his iron-willed restraint and care.
"I am yours to command," he said, stressing the shift of power between them. She was helpless, but not.
He watched the desire gleam in her eyes and ignored the brief flare of shame that twisted in his chest. He had thought to tame her, yes, and tease her as he had said, but she was still his Lady of Lilies.
Her falsehoods are but dreams, and ones we all desire.
Still he was a man and it was for him to instruct her, as need arose.
He licked his lips, feeling his manhood hard and aching. Of course he had looked when he ruffled her skirts—what man would not?—and that swift, brief glimpse of her nether curls, so soft and dark, had piled on the sweet agony.
Her small hand had found his and was guiding his hand: down the curve of her ribs, lower to the jutting bone of her hip and lower, and now she jumped in his arms as if burned and burrowed her head into his shoulder. Then, as if reminding herself to show courage, she looked straight at him and said something.
"I hope that was 'I love you,' in that curious tongue of yours," he remarked, gratified as her perfect features were suffused by a glow of deepest rose. He would wager she had not said that, but no matter: they were questing for the same end.
"I have yet to see any of your Eastern dances," he hinted.
She raised perfectly-shaped eyebrows but took the challenge at once. "A princess only dances on special days. It is a holy rite for us."
The naughty elf! Desire and amusement warred in him. "It is not a special day this day?" To press his suit, he glided his other hand for the seco
nd time beneath the silken sheath of her skirts, keeping her wriggling legs meantime snugly tethered in the coil of his arm.
She bucked on his lap, "dancing" around his own tent pole in a very satisfactory manner. The skin of her thighs was smoother than spring water and warm as cream; to caress her was better than any joust. For an instant, memory flung him back to him and Olwen, so very formal with each other for so long, and so careful in their joining. That sadness was lost in a new, urgent blast of joy, bright as a lightning bolt in his eyes and body, as Edith rolled so much that her bodice became unlaced. This wild, sweet play was new to him, and to Edith, he guessed.
He touched her intimately and she sucked in a great breath, her eyes closing. Beneath her dark curls her flesh was soft, pliant and warm and dewed by her desire. He throbbed to explore her, to bury himself in her. She tried to stroke him in return and when he quickened his fingers, she reared and squirmed.
"Easy, my sweet," he murmured. "We have all night."
It was for this that he had chosen their unusual privacy, with no one else close to hear or see. Her rapid gasps and urgings were for him alone: he would share them with nobody.
"My lady first," he said, stopping her reaching hand. "Will you dance for me, lady?"
At once she weaved and threaded her glistening parts about his fingers, her buttocks quivering and pinking up as she bounced unashamedly on his thighs. Her own thighs opened wider and he smelled her salty-sweet perfume, a delicious savour which mingled with the scent of lilies at her wrists, ankles and breasts. He revelled in the sight of her curls and folds and creases, so pink and soft...
Her desire was so powerful he almost lost his control. Each of her writhes jostled his manhood and he ached for release. Hoping his smile was not a grimace, he hung on, taking his pleasure in hers.
“Dance, too,” she moaned and he obeyed, stroking her, freeing her breasts and kissing her pert nipples, caressing her bottom. Her skirts were now coiled about her hips and he tightened his grip on her thighs so she would not fall at her moment of release.
Still licking her round, perky breasts he stroked her longer and faster, each of his fingerings going further and deeper. She stiffened and shuddered, crying his name, her face rosier than a sunset.
“You, you,” she gasped when she could speak again. He lifted her onto the bed, half-tossing her onto the pallet in his haste, and plunged into her.
“All, all,“ she chanted, as the blood sang and roared in his ears. He filled her, plugged her, besieged her, and she was his, his prize, his glory.
Moonlight filled the tent. Edith stirred, finding herself changed to silver, and Ranulf sweeping his hands over her breasts.
"Should we not talk of Lady Blanche, or the church-mob, or the dead man, or my village?" she asked, even as her throat was parching with desire.
"Look at your hand, dear one."
She glanced and stared. There, tied onto her betrothal finger with a piece of her own silk ribbon, was Ranulf's family ring. It shifted and rolled on her finger but shone on her hand like a crown.
Her eyes filled. She had been married once and betrothed twice but this was her first true ring. "It is beautiful," she stammered.
He laughed, his teeth silver in moonshine. "I would not go so far, I wager, but it will do."
She raised her hand. The ring looked so proud and at the same time clumsy that she giggled.
"Less levity, young woman." He contradicted his own suggestion by gently squeezing her breasts.
She forgot her dread of Giles, and his plotting. She did not forget the spy's dreadful statement, he is branding people now, for she knew that meant the people were here, in the camp, and she might know them.
We must find and save them, she thought, even as she wrapped her arms about Ranulf, her beautiful brute, and began to kiss him wherever she could reach.
She had tongued her way to his navel when he spun her like a child's top, over onto her belly.
"Sweet mounds." He cupped her breasts and then her bottom with his hands and with each touch pleasure slicked through her. "Did you help with the harvest in your village?"
His fingers trailed down her legs, circling and lightly pinching.
She nodded, wondering at his question.
"You would make a right pretty wheat maid, with your legs brown as cone sugar. Did you hitch your skirts to glean more freely?"
"Yes," she croaked, as his hand fluttered back up her legs.
"And all the village lads would hope to catch a glimpse of this round little backside of yours." He stroked her bottom.
"They never saw," Edith protested, her breath rushing out in a great gasp like a bellows as he hooked an arm about her waist.
"Never fret, sweeting, I know this." He swirled his palm over her naked haunches, circling one nether cheek then the other. "So open to me now, you are," he whispered, circling slowly. "So honest in your desire."
He eased his hand lower, over the curve of her bottom and between her thighs. Held by the loving clamp of his arm, Edith could not reach him in return.
"You tease," she moaned, as he began to alternate his circles with light pattings.
"No—I will save making your rump as red as a peony by daylight, or I will miss that pleasure," she heard him growl, mostly to himself, and now, as if he had finally heard her complaint, he sunk his fingers more deeply into her intimate places.
It was as if a sweet fire blazed within her head, behind her half-closed eyes. She began to move with him and smelled her own rising desire and his.
"Good, little one." He knelt behind her and she backed against him, embracing his male organ with her lower lips, bumping along his long hard length as she tried to embrace his member with herself.
He entered her very slowly, filling her. She laid her head on the pallet, gripped the nearest pillow and sighed.
"Lovely, gorgeous thing." He caressed her breasts again, complimenting her on their fullness, rolling the nipples between his thumb and forefinger. She felt her own inner moisture increase and, as if taking that as a sign or perhaps because he could no longer hold back, Ranulf lunged into a furious, fierce motion. Faster and faster he swept into her, yielding and imperious together, his body beating a rising tattoo against hers. At the final moment he shouted her name, a triumph for them both.
Chapter 34
A sheep woke Edith before day-break, bleating somewhere off in the darkness, a low alarm call unanswered: a lost sheep, then. She felt for her ring, still loose but tied and secure on her finger, and opened her eyes.
Ranulf was sitting on the edge of their hay-stuffed pallet, stamping his feet into his boots. He was already dressed and had draped a blanket over her. He touched her cheek with his fingers.
"No smile?" she teased.
He sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy, ragged hair. "Mornings do not find me at my best."
"Ah." Her grandfather had been the same, irritable and moody at the dawn. She kissed the back of his neck and let him go quietly on while she sought her own clothes.
Which she did not find. After she had turned back the sheets and poked amidst the floor strewings, Ranulf, who by now was drinking a long cup of ale, cleared his throat.
"I gave your things to my laundress. When the camp truly stirs, your maid will bring you new clothes."
"Then I will lie comfortably until she does." First, she strolled over to him and stood on his boots to kiss him.
"Take care, my lord, and good sport."
He frowned and then, as if words were too much at this early hour, he shrugged and whirled her lightly back to their soft nest of bedding, tucking her in as if she was a child.
"I will be back as soon as I may." He placed the half-drunk cup of ale by her side, so she might drink. "Edmund is with me, but my maids are here and they and all my men know to serve you. Fresh washing water. Your breakfast."
Even by the dim sliver of sunlight she could see his face, grim and martyr-solemn. She touched his forehead, feeling it hot.
He kissed her fingers urgently, and her mouth.
You are a poor dissembler, Rannie! I know full well what you have done and why, but you shall not clip my wings today: what I must know is too important.
"Take great care," she said, from the depths of the bed, and meant it.
He nodded, backing away from her now, but not wanting to turn away. "Soon as I can," he repeated.
As he left the tent she heard another great sigh spill from his lungs. She waited a moment longer, listening as his rushing feet stalked away to the horses, then found the ale and gulped it down.
That must be her breakfast, for she had much to do.
First she loosened her hair from its distinctive long plait and divided it into two—the first small beginnings of a new disguise. She did not want Teodwin to stop her, or Ranulf's captain, both of whom she knew would have orders to prevent her leaving. She arranged strewing in the bed to make a smooth "body", then looked for cloth she could use to make a gown.
Ranulf, or someone by his orders, had removed all his cloaks. Her shoes were gone, too, if indeed she ever had them here, which she could not recall. No matter, she thought, smiling at Ranulf's determination. She knew he had acted from love and for her protection, but today she must again disobey him.
Part of her marvelled at herself. In Warren Hemlet, as wife to the smith, she had been obedient. Not docile, but grudgingly accepting custom. Then Adam had died, Peter had died, Gregory had died. So many had died and the survivors had looked to those who had ideas and hope and these poor, bewildered souls had clung to her. As much as Ranulf, trained by war, she was now a leader, except her training had been the pestilence.
If he discovered her gone, would he understand?
I shall be very quick, she reassured herself. I know where to look and I will take care. No one will know, or be anxious.
That is, if she could find her knife to cut this bed-sheet.
The cloth was rough, scraping across her breasts and belly as she hurried to the river. She glanced at the strip of sacking wound and tied about her hand, to hide her new ring, and had the story ready in her head. I am a maid who burned my fingers on a cooking pot and, as punishment for my clumsy work, my master and mistress have sent me to scrub out bloody linen in the stream. Yes, that would keep the guards from prying.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 107